. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

"All That We Share," a production of Denmark's TV2Danmark, was published January 27, 2017. The video is described by the network as follows: "We live in a time where we quickly put people in boxes. Maybe we have more in common than what we think?" (The video was brought to my attention by Gregory Johnson, Resources For Life.)

Trump has in an instant damaged American soft power but we have also seen lawyers flock to American airports to give free advice, while an American judge has ruled that those with green cards and visas can enter. It is heartening to see American soldiers who served in Iraq standing up for interpreters who worked with them. . . . We have seen the worst of Trump's America but also the best of America in the actions of lawyers, judges and people demonstrating for visitors and refugees. . . . President Roosevelt described the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 as a day of infamy. Trump's ill-considered and fruitless actions amount to a self-inflicted day of infamy for America and will long be remembered as the moment that pointlessly alienated America's allies and assisted its enemies.

There is little more that can be or need be added to the world's overwhelming negative responses to President Trump's mean-spirited, ill considered, negligently executed, serious blow to our national security and international reputation from his "Executive Order" restricting immigration by refugees and other individuals from seven designated Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen). Made all the worse because he excluded from the ban Muslim countries in which he is doing business, and "Christians" from the seven designated countries (which looks like a violation of the First Amendment's "establishment" and "free exercise" of religion prohibitions).

But I think it is important for all who have access to a blog, or other means of communication, to take a stand at this time for American values. The excerpts from Gary Kent's piece from Kurdistan, recognizing the efforts of Americans to come to the aid of those most adversely and unfairly impacted, is one more reason why public opposition to Trump's action is helpful in retaining as much as possible of America's reputation as a nation of welcoming people. Kent's reaction in this regard is consistent with what I have heard from delegations from Turkey and Russia with whom I met yesterday and today. [Photo credit: AFP.]

So here are some truncated random thoughts about this disaster.

Putting "Terrorism" in Perspective. Obviously, we want, and have every right, to minimize the death and injury of Americans, and damage to our property, from what we call "terrorist acts." (1) But to the extent we're concerned about death, injury and property damage, that which is occasioned in America from "terrorism" is almost statistically insignificant compared with the 400,000 who die from tobacco-related disease, the result of alcohol and drug abuse, or the roughly equivalent numbers (about 35,000) who die from guns or automobile accidents. (2) And to the extent we do care about "terrorist acts" (or "hate crimes" involving death or serious bodily injury) many-to-most are caused by (a) those who would self-identify as "Christian" or non-believers rather than as Muslims, and (b) those -- including Muslims -- who were born in the U.S., or are otherwise legally here rather than refugees or new immigrants. (3) The handful Trump describes as "radical Islamic terrorists" in the U.S. have for the most part (and perhaps exclusively) been known to law enforcement and were "radicalized" here in the United States. In short, the return on this investment of time, effort, money -- and loss of American goodwill -- is not likely to produce much return.

Putting the Seven Countries in Perspective. I'm not going to do the research and produce the links to document what follows in this paragraph. But I believe it is a fair reading of what I've seen so far to say that (1) none of the seven countries Trump has chosen (originally singled out by President Obama for other reasons) have produced Muslims who have carried out terrorist attacks in the U.S., (2) he has excluded from his designated list countries those that have produced terrorists who attacked America (e.g., most of those involved in the 9/11 attacks on New York's Twin Towers came from Saudi Arabia), and (3) he has also excluded Muslim countries in which he has business interests. Whatever else one may think of this travel ban, this approach is simply irrational in terms of the stated purpose of the exercise: "to keep Americans safe." If there really were a serious likelihood of a flood of immigrants and refugees coming into the U.S. to do us harm -- because of their Muslim religion -- for which there is no evidence of which I am aware or to which Trump hinted, then the ban should have been applied to all countries with substantial Muslim populations. If a selection of countries was to be made, it would have made more sense to select those, based on past history, most likely to produce those wishing to do us harm rather than these seven.

Was Trump's travel ban an "anti-Muslim" action? He appeared to be stirring up Islamophobia among his supporters during his campaign, promising to do something like what he has just done. And even more telling is what Rudy Giuliani reports regarding his exchange with Trump. Amy B. Wang, "Trump asked for a 'Muslim ban,' Giuliani says -- and ordered a commission to do it 'legally,'"Washington Post, January 29, 2017 ("Former New York mayor Rudy W. Giuliani said President Trump wanted a 'Muslim ban' and requested he assemble a commission to show him 'the right way to do it legally.' Giuliani . . . appeared on Fox News late Saturday [Jan. 28] night to describe how Trump's executive order temporarily banning refugees came together. . . . 'How did the president decide the seven countries?' [Fox News host Jeanine Pirro] asked. . . . 'I'll tell you the whole history of it,' Giuliani responded eagerly. 'So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, "Muslim ban." He called me up. He said, "Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally."'")

Putting the Process in Perspective. The chaos and crises that have followed Trump's action is as good a case study as could be found of why we have government departments and agencies to aid the White House staff and president. Why we have a professional, well-educated, experienced, dedicated, patriotic civil service, bringing their well-informed experience and judgment to bear on why and how some proposals should be pursued and others should not. It appears Trump's idea was not vetted; those who could have helped were not consulted; those who would have to execute it were not informed. For someone who claimed the ability to bring sound American business practices to government, this looked more like someone headed for bankruptcy -- as indeed Trump did when he couldn't even make gambling casinos profitable.

This could go on and on, and you may think it already has. There is much more that could be said, none of it positive. It would be bad enough if imposing travel bans on another country's entire population of a given religion were merely ineffective. In this case, it's much worse. The backlash has already started. Iran has launched a missile, other countries' cabinet officers have been turned away, our universities' international students are nervous, those with "green cards" were initially turned away (before that insanity was walked back), those who served our military as interpreters are not being provided the protection they were promised, American overseas military and tourists are at greater risk, global commerce and airline operations are suffering.

Welcome to the world of government by tweets. Sad.

Who are we? If you didn't watch the video at the top of this blog essay when you began reading, watch it now. That's who we are. That's who we need to rise up and demand we will continue to be.

Many feared the worst of President Trump while others hoped he would become more presidential. Such hopes have been dashed by his edict on "extreme vetting" that Times columnist Roger Boyes says is "the bluntest of blunt instruments, sledgehammer-politik." . . . It was announced on Holocaust Memorial Day which reminded people of restrictions preventing Jews escaping the Nazis in the 1930s and ending up in death camps. . . .

Quick footwork by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who persuaded the American authorities to modify the presidential decree so it largely does not apply to British citizens, will slightly lessen the issue. But expect more heartbreaking stories of family division, people being unable to visit dying relatives, start jobs while hundreds of Iraqi interpreters are reported as being in a visa limbo. Daesh must be rubbing its hands in glee. . . .

Our fear last year was that this would chill investment as people found out that going to Kurdistan would complicate later visits to the US. International business groups have expressed fears that the latest ban will harm them. No one denies that the US has the right to patrol its borders and to prevent terrorists from entering the US. But there is no evidence that current measures are failing or that a blanket ban is necessary. . . .

Trump has in an instant damaged American soft power but we have also seen lawyers flock to American airports to give free advice, while an American judge has ruled that those with green cards and visas can enter. It is heartening to see American soldiers who served in Iraq standing up for interpreters who worked with them. We will see in the near future whether further changes can be made and whether the State Department can induce Trump to find a face-saving formula to rescind the order soon. . . .

Trump will probably continue to govern in this disruptive, defiant and divisive manner and this presents big difficulties for America's allies. . . . [Former British Foreign Minister Alistair Burt] suggested that a diplomatic excuse for postponing Trump's planned state visit to the UK in the summer might be wise.

We have seen the worst of Trump's America but also the best of America in the actions of lawyers, judges and people demonstrating for visitors and refugees. . . .

[Professor Eliot Cohen, a former adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] writes in The Atlantic that: "Precisely because the problem is one of [Trump's] temperament and character, it will not get better." Cohen argues it will worsen as power intoxicates Trump and those around him, and probably end in calamity such as substantial domestic protest and violence, broken international economic relationships and major alliances, and one or more new wars, even with China. He would not be surprised if Trump is impeached.

More optimistically Cohen concludes that "There is nothing great about the America that Trump thinks he is going to make; but in the end, it is the greatness of America that will stop him." The ban may be further modified or lifted but leaves a lingering bad taste.

President Roosevelt described the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 as a day of infamy. Trump's ill-considered and fruitless actions amount to a self-inflicted day of infamy for America and will long be remembered as the moment that pointlessly alienated America's allies and assisted its enemies.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Will football be next? This morning's [Jan. 15] New York Times reports Ringling Brothers circus will close forever in two months.

Animal rights activists, growing public support for their sentiments, leading to declining ticket sales, played a major role in this decision.

If public concern over physical and other harms to animals can close "the greatest show on earth," how long can it be before public concern over physical and other harms to humans will close professional football?

Note: Information regarding an audio of the presentation can be found HERE.

Endnotes
In the 1920s, when a quarter of America’s 115 million people lived on farms[1], two farm kids arrived in Iowa City; one from northwest Iowa and one from eastern Kansas.

It was a time when less than half the American population had even an eighth-grade education.[2]

The University of Iowa diplomas these two kids received put them in an educational elite: that upper 5 percent of Americans with B.A. degrees.[3]

Ultimately, they married. The Kansas boy became a university professor. The Iowa woman, whose high school graduating class had six other women and one man, began teaching in the West Branch schools.

During the Twenties, the UI -– then SUI, the State University of Iowa -– was doubling its enrollment[4] and expanding its campus across the River with the Field House[5], Stadium[6], and the recently-demolished Quadrangle.[7]

In 1934, six years after the hospital was built[8] -- what’s now called Boyd Tower -- the woman entered that hospital pregnant, and left with a 12-pound baby boy.

That was me.

As if being born on third base was not privilege enough, I was soon enrolled in the University of Iowa’s Child Welfare Research Station,[9] and then the University’s experimental schools[10] -– both sources of numerous educational research projects.

So, what are the lessons so far from this nostalgic rambling?

One lesson from a review of education’s past is that it puts our current classroom technology in context. Iowa’s Nineteenth Century teachers can still teach us. What were they doing in those 12,000 one-room school houses across the state – without any of our technology -– that enabled them to educate those 19th and early 20th-Century farm children like my parents?[11]

A second lesson is that to understand the challenges Twenty-First Century educators confront, it’s helpful to understand how and why they differ from the challenges of the 1920s -– and why these are differences of kind, not merely differences of degree.

My childhood research involved libraries with hard copy books, magazines, newspapers, and the Encyclopedia Britannica; card catalogs and the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. We wrote on paper with pencils, ink pens, and ultimately typewriters.

In 1969 I wrote what ultimately became a book chapter, “Communications and the Year 2000.” [12] I envisioned a 30-year progression toward what I called the “instantaneous, ubiquitous, no-cost communication” that we have today.

Today there are digital books, magazines, failing newspapers and Wikipedia. Our Main Library’s card catalogs have been pushed aside for computer stations, food courts, and lounges.[13] Two billion people have smartphones[14] that can instantly reach over one billion Websites[15] with 40,000 Google searches every second.[16]

Hollywood still turns out 34 films a year earning over $50 million each.[17] But today it’s competing with those two billion people uploading over 300 hours of video per minute to YouTube alone.[18]

Not incidentally, those Internet resources include free access to much of the content that we teach -– and charge our students thousands of dollars to receive.[19]

All of which brings me to another challenge we confront as educators: students who have grown up participating in a national conversation in which many participants neither know nor care about the distinctions between truth and lies, facts and opinions.

I recall sitting in a movie theater with two of my sons, then ten and seven. The seven-year-old noticed an “Exit” sign over a door near the front of the theater. “Hey, Dad, look,” he said, pointing to it. “We could just come in that door and we wouldn’t have to pay.”

Seizing this teachable moment, I replied, “That’s right, son; there’s nothing you can’t do if you’re willing to lie, cheat and steal.”

It was a risky response on my part. It could have propelled my sons into a life of very profitable crime. Fortunately, they grasped the lesson and have lived by it ever since.

“The Law,” and fear of punishment if caught, control some human behavior. But in most cultures, social norms –- such things as the space we give others, what is considered “appropriate” in speech, dress, or eating habits – provide more behavioral guidance than law.

An even greater force is one's internal moral compass.

Sometimes even school administrators rationalize that a questionable practice – like taking advertising revenue from the gambling, alcohol, or sugar-water industries – is OK because, as they say, “revenue is needed.”[20]

My response? “Once 'revenue is needed' becomes your polestar, your moral compass begins to spin as if you were standing on the North Pole.”[21]

It is that lack of moral compass that makes possible our most recent presidential campaign in which the candidate whose statements were “false or worse” 27 percent of the time lost to the candidate whose statements were false or worse 70 percent of the time.[22]

As we’ve recently discovered, lies work. A politician can lie his or her way into office. Why? Because their followers believe what they’re told.[23]

Among Trump’s supporters,

• 67% say unemployment increased under Obama (in fact, it declined)
• 39% think the stock market went down under Obama (it went up)
• 52% insist Trump won the popular vote (he didn't; Hillary Clinton had three million more votes)
• 14% believe Hillary Clinton's running a child sex ring out of a Washington pizza parlor (she's not)[24]

Which brings us to the challenge we confront from the mass media -– a force that can multiply the impact of speech beyond our wildest imagining.

During my 15 minutes of fame, I was doing a national lecture business and appeared as a guest on the late-night network TV shows.

I was curious about the size and impact of a national TV audience compared with a lecture hall audience. It turned out that, to lecture to as many folks as were watching those TV shows, I would need to deliver lectures every day, to eight different audiences, five days a week, fifty weeks a year, for -– want to guess? -– for 100 years![25]

The Congress that enacted the first radio regulation understood this power. As one member said in 1926:

American politics will be at the mercy of those who operate these stations. . .. [If] a single selfish group is permitted to . . . dominate them . . . woe be to those [of us] who dare to differ with them. It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people.[26]

The FCC’s predecessor, the Radio Commission, regulated accordingly.

Dr. Robert Shuler was a Los Angeles preacher in the early 1930s. He also owned radio station KGEF. His language and attacks on politicians, police officials, trade unions, Catholics, Jews and African Americans were like those today by Rush Limbaugh, or tweets from our President-Elect.

The Radio Commission refused to renew Shuler’s license, under the congressionally-mandated “public interest” standard. On appeal, the court affirmed the Commission.[27]

That is no longer the law.

In my day, the FCC had something called the “Fairness Doctrine.” Unlike the Shuler case, it put few if any restraints on what could be said. It did not require a child’s sense of “fairness,” nor “equal time.” It merely required stations to program about controversial issues of public importance, and in doing so to give some coverage to a range of views.[28]

That, too, is no longer either the law or the reality.

Fifty years ago, given ABC’s then weakness, it was said we had a two-and-one-half television network economy regulated by the FCC. Today we have hundreds of channels with virtually no FCC content regulation.[29]

And what does all of this mean for technology in our classrooms?

The University of Iowa faculty can take some pride in the technological innovations of the last 20 years we have welcomed into our offices and classrooms. We’ve come a long way from the days when our critics said it had taken us 50 years to get the overhead projector out of the bowling alley and into the classroom.

But technology alone is not enough to deal with the lie -– whether part of a Big Lie technique, or a little fib. In fact, as we’ve seen from the fake news sites and the online social media, technology can sometimes make things worse.

So what are we to do?

There is a bumper sticker that reads, “Whatever is the question, war is not the answer.” My version reads, “Whatever is the question, education is the answer.”

Forty-seven years ago, I calculated that the average five-year-old had already spent more hours watching television than they would later spend in a college classroom earning a B.A. degree.[30] Today, their screen time is even greater.[31]

One-third of children under two have a TV in their bedroom.[32] One-half of those over eight, with access to everything from video games to laptops, have multiple digital and Internet-connected devices.[33]

Are there benefits from our children living virtual lives on screens? Absolutely. But there are also downsides. The CDC lists “watching television or other screen devices” as a contributing cause of obesity.[34]

Texting while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk.[36] Students texting, tweeting and Facebooking during class time just end up proving there’s no such thing as “multi-tasking.”[37]

Central to our concern as educators is our students’ -– and sometimes our own – seeming inability to swim through the ocean waves of the Internet, this murky soup of truth and trash, with an ability to pick the facts from the phonies.

More important than theories of government, more important than the examples and data you discuss, more important than the personal experiences I could share, more important than all of this, is your ability to be thoughtful about the language you use to talk about these public policy issues.[40]

I reminded them of the portion of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath in which he describes a filling station attendant who repeats to Tom Joad, “What’s the country comin’ to? What’s the country comin’ to?” To which Tom replies, “You ain’t askin’ nothin’; you’re jus’ singin’ a kinda song.”[41]

I closed that National Issues Forum talk by saying,

We have to know how to tell a fact from a phony. We have to get beyond the generalities and the ideology. We have to stop “just singing a kind of song.” We have to ask – ourselves as well as others – “What do you mean? and How do you know?”[42]

In the fall of 2009, when then-Provost Wallace Loh asked that I teach one of Iowa’s First Year Seminars, I produced a book for my Iowa undergraduates that used those questions as its title: What Do You Mean? And How Do You Know? An Antidote for the Language That Does Our Thinking for Us[43] –- drawing on my own writing, and that of others, about what in the 1950s was called “general semantics.”

General semantics was then a subject of academic courses across the country, scholarly and popular books, and even local chapters of the International Society of General Semantics. It had grown out of World War II – the perceived dangers from future use of Hitler’s powerful propaganda techniques, and the role of language in our desperate efforts to prevent future human annihilation from atomic bombs.

America’s next four years present equivalent challenges.

Whatever is the question, education is the answer.

And it may just be time, once again, to include some of the literature of general semantics in that education;[44] to provide our undergraduates some help as they struggle with the questions, “What do you mean? And How do you know?”

_______________

Note About Audio: The audio of this presentation contains the Introduction, at 1:19-3:42; the Speech, at 4:09-27:51; and a Q and A, at 28:11-44:22. You can link to the audio here. (Thanks to the UI's Trevor Templeman and Kirk Batterson for producing the audio and making it available, and to Gregory Johnson of Resources For Life for enabling me to post it here.)

2. "In 1940, more than half of the U.S. population had completed no more than an eighth grade education. Only 6 percent of males and 4 percent of females had completed 4 years of college." "National Assessment of Adult Literacy; 120 Years of Literacy," National Center for Education Statistics; a 1925-26 study of eight Oklahoma cotton belt counties found, among farmers, only 2% of males and 3.5% of females had attended college. Faith M. Williams and Carle C. Zimmerman, Studies of Family Living in the United States and Other Countries: An Analysis of Material and Method, U.S. Department of Agriculture, December 1935, p. 94. By contrast, "• In 2015, almost 9 out of 10 adults (88 percent) had at least a high school diploma or GED, while nearly 1 in 3
adults (33 percent) held a bachelor’s or higher degree." Camille L. Ryan and Kurt Bauman, "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015," Current Population Reports, Population Characteristics, U.S. Census Bureau

11. "Numbering an astonishing 12,000 to 14,000 at one time, depending on what report you use, Iowa had more one-room school houses than any other state in the union." "A walk through Iowa's one-room schoolhouses," Iowa Department of Education. "One-Room Schools," Iowa Pathways, Iowa Public Television. Few would wish for a return to the one-room school era, but there were some features of them that we do, and more that we could, use to advantage. For example: they often had fewer students in the entire school than we have in a classroom, enabling more individual attention from the teacher in this place "where everybody knows your name"; the consistency of one teacher for all years and all subjects; collaboration by necessity, with older students helping younger; all courses "accelerated" as younger students absorbed some of what was being taught to those older; more time for individual instruction ("no special ed but lots of special help"); more time for reflection, mastery of material, memorization ability.

15. "In 1994, for example, there were fewer than 3,000 websites online. By 2014, there were more than 1 billion. That represents a 33 million percent increase in 20 years." Adrienne LaFrance, "How Many Websites Are There?" The Atlantic, September 30, 2015

16. "By 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, Google was serving more than 3.5 billion searches per day—equivalent to 40,000 searches every second." Ibid.

17. "Though there are more big pictures and tiny pictures, there aren’t enough films in the middle. The number of movies that grossed between $50 million and $100 million, essentially the range of grosses that could once be expected for romantic comedies and thrillers, fell from 41 in 2004 to 34 last year. The drop over that time frame was even more severe in the pictures in the under $50 million range . . .." Brent A. Lang, "Is Hollywood Making Too Many Movies?" Variety, June 23, 2015

20. For one of the earlier examples, linking to some others, see Nicholas Johnson, "'Revenue is Needed' Updates," September 26, 2007; a Google search -- "revenue is needed" site:http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com -- produced "About 66 results."

21. Ibid.

22. "One persistent narrative in American politics is that Hillary Clinton is a slippery, compulsive liar while Donald Trump is a gutsy truth-teller. . . . Yet the idea that they are even in the same league is preposterous. . . . One metric comes from independent fact-checking websites. As of Friday [Aug. 5], PoltiFact had found 27 percent of Clinton's statements . . . were mostly false or worse, compared with 70 percent of Trump's." Nicholas Kristof, "Clinton's Fibs vs. Trump's Huge Lies,"New York Times, August 7, 2016, p. SR 9

25. Obviously, this is a fanciful exercise as every number is a variable -- size of audience, number of lectures per day, number of days per year, number of years, the year we're talking about, number of U.S. homes, percentage with TV reception, percentage of those homes watching TV, percentage of those homes watching any given program. In the 1960s there were, say, 60 million homes ["Housing," U.S. Census Bureau], 90% of which had a TV. With 50% of those homes watching TV, and three dominant networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) splitting that audience, a given program could have something like 10 million viewers. Eight lectures a day times five days a week times 50 weeks a year times 100 years is 200,000 lectures; times an audience of 50 is 10 million viewers.

26. About 90 years ago, when the Radio Act was debated in Congress, and the miracle of radio was only barely understood, Congressman Luther Johnson of Texas was so remarkably prescient to foresee: "American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate these stations. For publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a Republic, and when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one, or a single selfish group is permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership and dominate these broadcasting stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them. It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people." 67 Cong. Rec. 5558 (1926).

27. Trinity Methodist Church v. Fed'l Radio Com'n, 62 F.2d 850 (D.C. Cir. 1932). The court had to decide whether the First Amendment prevented the Commission from considering Shuler’s “defamatory and untrue matter.” The court affirmed the Commission’s refusal to renew, saying, "If . . . one . . . may . . . use these facilities . . . to obstruct the administration of justice, offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands, inspire political distrust and civic discord, or offend youth and innocence . . ., and be answerable for slander only at the instance of the one offended, then this great science, instead of a boon, will become a scourge . . .."

28. A useful discussion of the Fairness Doctrine, in the context of a specific case, can be found in Brandywine Main Line Radio v. F.C.C., 473 F2d 16 (D.C. Cir. 1972), which includes the court's reproduction of a "parable" of the author's view of the matter (previously presented to a congressional committee), found in the three paragraphs before note call 118.

29. For one explanation (the author's) of how and why more and more agencies seem to regulate less and less, see the discussion of Washington's "sub-governments" in Nicholas Johnson, What Do You Mean and How Do You Know? An Antidote for the Language That Does Our Thinking for Us, "You As Citizen I: What Do You Mean and How Do You Know?" ch. 5, pp. 56-59.

30. "By the time the average child enters kindergarten [they have] already spent more hours learning about [their] world from television than the hours [they] would spend in a college classroom earning a B.A. degree." Id. in Ch. 1, "The Crush of Television," p. 7.

31. "The study found that fully half of children under 8 had access to a mobile device like a smartphone, a video iPod, or an iPad or other tablet. . . . [A]lmost a third of children under 2 have televisions in their bedrooms, . . .. In families with annual incomes under $30,000, the new study found, 64 percent of children under 8 had televisions in their rooms . . .." Tamar Lewin, "Screen Time Higher Than Ever for Children,"New York Times, October 25, 2011, p. A18

35. Newton N. Minow, "Television and the Public Interest," National Association of Broadcasters, May 9, 1961 ("Your industry possesses the most powerful voice in America. It has an inescapable duty to make that voice ring with intelligence and with leadership. . . . But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.) And for an update, see Nicholas Johnson, "Forty Years of Wandering in the Wasteland," Federal Communications Law Journal, 55 F.C.L.J 521 (2003).

36. Kiernan Hopkins, "Is Texting While Driving More Dangerous Than Drunk Driving?" DistractedDriverAccidents.com, April 2, 2013 ("Car and Driver Magazine performed an experiment . . .. [C]ars were rigged with a red light to alert drivers when to brake. The magazine tested how long it would take to hit the brakes when sober, when legally impaired at a BAC level of .08, when reading an e-mail and when sending a text. Sober, focused drivers took an average of 0.54 seconds to brake. For legally drunk drivers four feet needed to be added. An additional 36 feet was necessary for reading an e-mail, and a whopping added 70 feet was needed for sending a text.")

37. Jim Taylor, "Technology: Myth of Multitasking," Psychology Today, March 30, 2011 ("Like many wired people, you probably take great pride in being a multitasker. . . . There's one problem with this scenario: there is no such thing as multitasking -- at least not the way you may think of it.")

39. Nicholas Johnson, "You As Citizen I: 'What Do You Mean and How Do You Know?', What Do You Mean and How Do You Know? An Antidote for the Language That Does Our Thinking for Us, ch. 5, p. 49 (Lulu Press, 2009)

43. Nicholas Johnson, What Do You Mean and How Do You Know? An Antidote for the Language That Does Our Thinking for Us (Lulu Press, 2009).

44. For a brief introduction to what is meant by "general semantics," see "Introduction: Why General Semantics?" in Nicholas Johnson, What Do You Mean and How Do You Know? An Antidote for the Language That Does Our Thinking for Us (Lulu Press, 2009), ch. 1, p. 1.4

Thursday, January 05, 2017

Note: Each year around January 1 The Gazette calls upon its "Writers Circle" for brief pieces regarding the year to come. What follows was my contribution to "Writers Circle: Our Resolutions for 2017."

Focus on Our Common Values

Nicholas Johnson

The Gazette, January 1, 2017, p. D2
The prefix, “comm,” has been around for 700 years: “communication,” “the commons,” a “commune,” “communitarian,” “communal” – and “community.” My column in this space last year focused on the role of communications in defining and building a community.

This year’s focus is on our common values; the standards we want for all.

A couple weeks ago, in a play based on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, I played Mr. Fezziwig – a jolly employer with communal values, in stark contrast to their absence in Ebenezer Scrooge. It is a contrast, alas, that persists 170 years later.

Eastern Iowa, and this newspaper, are blessed with a good many Fezziwigs. My suggestion for 2017 is that we come together in the spirit of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights to draft our own (see especially Articles 25 and 26 – look it up).

What do we wish for all who live among us? We are all in need of something. Even the well-educated wealthy can suffer disabilities or addictions. But what can we do for those with less income, new immigrants, recently released prisoners, homeless veterans, or those with jobs but no reliable transportation?

Nothing posted on this blog is intended as, constitutes, nor should be taken to be, "legal advice," nor as creating an attorney-client relationship.

Personal View

This blog is neither affiliated with the University of Iowa nor hosted by it. It is maintained by Nicholas Johnson in his individual capacity. Nothing posted here should be construed as anything other than the personal views of the author.